Dinner with I-san

Today I had dinner with my co-worker, I-san, who specializes in cartography and GIS applications. His desk is behind mine, and he's usually buried in huge map sheets, measuring coordinates and matching contour lines, or otherwise writing reports about his current project in Montenegro.
I suppose he must be in his late 40s or so, as he has two children aged 19 and 22. We talked about how his youngest is thinking to study overseas for a year. He said when thinks back to when he was in university himself, he would have liked to study abroad if he'd had the chance. But through his work at our company, I-san said he's been to about 25 countries now. Wow! Myself, I can count 6 countries in the 10 years since I made my first trip overseas. Then there's our Section Chief, D-san, who I remember saying once that he has been to over 40 countries, and I don't think he's even 60 years old yet. (Then again, you have the most widely traveled man in probably all of history, former Pope John Paul II, who traveled to 117 countries during his pontificate.)
I-san told me anecdotes about his recent trips to Montenegro and Macedonia, and a one-day siteseeing trip in New York City on his way to Brazil. I also learned that there was McDonald's in Sri Lanka (surprising, as I thought most Sinhalese were vegetarian. To which you might respond, "But there's McDonald's everywhere!" On the contrary, there are still places where the golden arches do not exist: list of countries without McDonald's.) He told me about what a great time he had in Paris for two weeks once, and was surprised to find a little Japanese restaurant in a Parisian suburb 50km outside of the city, run by a Cambodian staff. "I guess Cambodian cuisine doesn't fare as well," he said,"but who knew a Cambodian could make such good Japanese food!" Although, the question remains, would this little restaurant receive a stamp of authenticity through the new government certification system that goes into effect this year? (see here)
All-in-all, I was glad I-san asked me if I had time for a beer after work. I suspect he wanted to practice his English, which I would have been fine with actually, but in the end we spoke in Japanese for the duration. It was a good time and nice to get to know another of my co-workers.

Before there was rice...

...there was millet. Well, at least to prehistoric northern Chinese. According to wikipedia, thousands of years ago in China, millet - the small, yellow grain - was more common than rice. Well then, maybe it's not surprising to find millet in a Chinese grocery store today, even in central Tokyo. In fact, that's exactly where I bought it.
I finally tried to make a dish using millet last night, and although it turned out nothing like I expected, it was alright. I took a friend's suggestion and made a sauce with veggies, like carrot and onion, and then I added some chunks of chicken to the mix. The millet was a little too saturated, but hopefully with some experimentation, I will get it down to a science. In any case, the left-overs are in my lunch box today :)

French Press and Français

This morning I woke up and made a cup of coffee in the french press as usual. This has become, by far, my favorite way to brew coffee beans. Thanks to Japan's "tea culture", it's common to have boiled water on hand in an electric hot pot, so it doesn't take much time at all to prepare coffee this way. I put in one scoop of coarsely ground beans and fill with hot water, give it a quick stir and put the top on. 2 minutes later I give the plunger a push and the coffee is ready. This gives it a deeper flavor than drip coffee with a paper filter, but even more is the fact that you keep the essential oils from the bean in the coffee. I don't know how to express the difference except to say, imagine drinking chicken soup out of the pot or after putting it through a paper strainer; I think you'd want to get rid of the strainer in that case as well.

Anyway, there was more thème français to come as the day went on. In the afternoon, J and I went to Shibuya (downtown neighborhood of Tokyo) where there is a 7 Floor Tower Records. The store was hosting an event for a French artist I happen to like this afternoon. Born in Senegal, but living in Paris, Tété sings folk rock-style with blues undertones. I actually had no idea he was in Japan this week. I was searching the internet, drinking my french press café, looking for when tickets to his concert in September would go on sale. To my surprise, at 3:00 he was giving a promo show.

Well, J and I already had plans to go to the Thai Festival downtown in Shibuya, but we cut that short so we could make the promo show. Lunch at the Thai Festival was great and we had pad thai, green curry, spring rolls and papaya salad, not to mention a Phuket beer, which was all good. Then we stopped by the tsunami relief booth where my friend Kenji was volunteering. It was great to see Kenji and talk for a bit. I told him we were on our way to see Tété and he said he liked his music too, so maybe he'll come to the concert in September with us.

Anyway, we trotted off to Tower Records and got there early enough to get Tété's latest CD so I could get it signed. Tété came out and played 2 songs acoustic, which was great. There was a huge crowd there, clearly more than anyone had expected. Everyone cheered and asked for one more song, and Tété was great and said okay and sang us another one. For the signing he had a translator so he could talk with his Japanese fans. He speaks English though, so when it was my turn I simply said "Thanks for coming out" and we shook hands. Anyway, here's a pic of Tété below during his promo show.


you can hear some of his songs at the link below:
Tété on MySpace